RAE:

No prob.  And I agree with the remainder of your post!

omop:

Re gay soldiers marrying each other, I am guessing that with the repeal of DADT, if gay marriages ever become legal federally, the militayr would be required to uphold that law as well.

Peace.

This issue can only be finally resolved when the military will allow “gays” to marry
each other.

QED

Maani:

I believe you are correct and I withdraw my erroneous comment to that regard.

However, as leaders, they seem confident that if they gave an order, for example, to “charge that hill,” every last soldier would pop up out of his hiding place and charge into a hail of bullets without even thinking. I mean it’s obvious that the fear of being killed doesn’t prevent them from following orders.

So why can’t these leaders give the command that from this day forward all soldiers are equal - gay, straight and polka-dotted - everyone has the same rights and will be treated with respect, and have that order immediately obeyed?

Do you think perhaps some soldiers have a greater fear of a gay guy than taking a bullet in the head?

Boy, does conditioning ever work in some people!

RAE:

“And by the time the philosophy of fairness that underwrites this new policy is actually accepted by the ignorant, gutless homophobes in charge of the military…”

Actually, most of those actually “in charge” of the military - including the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, most of the five-stars, and many of the four-stars (as well as the Sec’y of Defense, and the Pentagon’s top compliance officers) - all supported the repeal.  Only a few holdouts were not in support.

Peace.

To morristhewise…

Your comments baffle me. Your stats are inaccurate to say the least (at the outside there are 30 million non-heterosexual residents in the USA).

Secondly, I don’t think there will be any immediate significant increase in gays coming out of the closet after DADT is repealed. The general population has a lot of growing to do before sexual orientation is accepted as the NON-ISSUE that it truly is. Once most people get past puberty and that first 10 years or so of raging hormones, the act of “love making,” as you put it, most often slides far down the list of things that occupy one’s waking hours and concerns.

Non-gay people need to know, learn, understand and accept that they have absolutely NOTHING to fear daytime or “after dark” from gays. All the BS they’ve been fed by religious wackos and the other ignorant sheep in our society is just that - bullshit. It’s beyond me what goes on in the heads of some hetero guys - what do they fear? - that some gay guy in a shower room is going to pin him to the floor and power rape him? Not bloody likely. If any “straight” guy is phobic about gays its because he is aware of and terrified of the “gay” in his own secret fantasies and that someone might find him out - or worse, he might somehow get involved after a dozen beers and ACTUALLY ENJOY a SAME-SEX encounter! That’s at the root of the gay bashing - the straights are afraid of THEMSELVES so they lash out at the gays.

And finally, while there certainly are some rather oddly behaving gays - the drag queens and the outlandishly effeminate for example, these are the tiniest minority of gay people. Gays aren’t without a whole pile of problems themselves, just like straights. If you’d grown up being told by everyone that you’re sick and dirty and evil, just how mentally stable would you be? It’s not being gay that is the problem. It’s the non-gay phobic reactions to gay behavior that does the damage and then the straights turn around and blame the gays for having problems.

Like I said… the general population has a long way to go to realize that the sexual orientation of OTHERS is just NONE OF THEIR BLOODY BUSINESS. I can assure you that a soldier, who happens to be gay, and who is in some kind of firefight, is NOT thinking about sex any more than his straight buddies are. The job is the job. The bedroom is a whole other world. Unless, of course, it’s your JOB to work in a bedroom. Ha!

Very few gay and bisexual men and women are willing to stand up and be counted. But with growing social acceptance more than 50 million Americans will soon be coming out of the closet and admit that they enjoy same sex love making. That confession will be bad news for homophobes who will fear leaving their homes after sundown.

After the vote to repeal, one arachnid of a senator was heard to exclaim - “This is
a sad day.”

Fine, then go right on outside and blow your brains out, Senator McCain. Or what
little you have left, because you have genuinely and truly changed,  you’ve become to American politics what Mel Gibson is to American entertainment.

It was all so predictable, ever since that trip that you made back to Hanoi, where
in a presser, you couldn’t control yourself and said outright that the wrong side
had won, re. - the United States’ invasion of South Vietnam and all of the carnage
wreaked upon Laos, Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam.

The only (living) scum that you float upon goes by the name of Kissinger.

I’m sure that DADT passing was part of the deal to make sure the tax cut travesty went through.  DADT isn’t going to threaten the re-election of the 8 Republicans who voted for it—they represent the “liberal” contingent of the GOP in the Senate.

And it gives needed window-dressing to the lie that the Senators can work out compromises.

But not good enough to pass the Dream Act, that innocent children here illegally all their lives can aspire to being legitimate citizens as long as they prove their value.

It’s all just a staged cosmic dance to cover the obvious: The GOP controls and runs Washington because the Dems are too spineless to use the same tactics.

What we’ve just heard is the starting gun to some sort of political pentathlon that has built-in rest periods for contemplation and review. By the time this law actually comes into full effect, Obama’s administration will be nothing but a fond memory.

And by the time the philosophy of fairness that underwrites this new policy is actually accepted by the ignorant, gutless homophobes in charge of the military, and in the general population as well, who seem completely incapable of understanding the simple phrase “EQUAL UNDER THE LAW,” we’ll all be well into our old age pensions, if not on to “vaporville.”

However, even a baby step is welcome in the world where crawling is the norm.

The greatest disappointment though is that any gay or lesbian person would even contemplate taking a job that requires them to slip into a uniform, pick up a weapon, and murder other human beings - but I guess that’s another topic.

The Senate repealed DADT: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013713976_dontask19.html

“The Senate on Saturday voted 65-31 to strike down the 17-year ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military and sent President Obama legislation to overturn the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”“

“Obama was expected to sign the bill into law this week, although changes to military policy probably wouldn’t take effect for at least several months. Under the bill, the president and his top military advisers must first certify that lifting the ban won’t hurt troops’ ability to fight. After that, the military would undergo a 60-day wait period.

Repeal would mean that, for the first time in U.S. history, gays would be openly accepted by the armed forces and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out.

More than 13,500 service members have been dismissed under the 1993 law.

“It is time to close this chapter in our history,” Obama said. “It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.”

Supporters hailed the vote as a major step forward for gay rights. Many activists hope that integrating openly gay troops within the military will lead to greater acceptance in the civilian world, as it did for blacks after President Truman’s 1948 executive order on equal treatment regardless of race in the military.

“We righted a wrong,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who led the effort to end the prohibition on gays in the military. “Today we’ve done justice.”

Eight Republicans sided with the 55 Democrats and two independents in favor of repeal in the 65-31 vote.

Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, voted for the bill. The eight Republicans who sided with Democrats are: Richard Burr, of North Carolina; Mark Kirk, of Illinois; Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska; George Voinovich, of Ohio; Scott Brown, of Massachusetts; John Ensign, of Nevada; and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, of Maine.

Four senators did not vote.

The House passed an identical version of the bill, 250-175, last week.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013713976_dontask19.html